Cry
by SavingOphelia
Summary: Haymitch Abernathy only lets the tears fall five times in his life. / Hayffie one-shot, spans pre-canon to post-Mockingjay, bookverse.


**A/N ~ **Welcome, welcome! If you did not read that in Liz's Effievoice I have to say - judging you a little. So this is actually the first hayffie work that I have published in the internet realms. Be nice. Angsty Hayffie is the best Hayffie. Why am I doing this to myself?

-o-o-o-o-o-

Haymitch Abernathy only lets the tears fall five times in his life.

**_i._**

The first time he knows what it feels like to really _cry_, he's eighteen, a fresh Victor, and his family is dead. No. Murdered.

He's walking across the Meadow of District Twelve, trying to keep a level gaze at a fixed point in the distance as he trudges through the scruffy grass, the unkempt tangles of earth. Sometimes he goes back there, through the Seam. His time there, in one of the splintering little structures they call homes, was miserable, and had always been, one of coal dust and hunger, but he always called it a home.

The Victors Village, not so much. He can feel the handle of the knife in his belt, hitching the fabric of his shirt. The day has dawned grey and bright, a monochrome spectrum. He walks the black-dusted paths, through the Seam, and people stare, ground-down miners on their way to work. Of course they do. He's the second Victor in Twelve history. He ignores them. The world has been dulled since it was first spattered scarlet.

He hasn't had a drink in a while. Since he returned from the arena – could it only have been a few weeks? Since he was trapped in the place of nightmares? - the bottles have been a sort of salvation, if a temporary one; the dust settling in the cracks of the Hob's counter a welcome friend. He thinks he might go later. He dreamed of Maysilee last night, and the Career girl whose name he didn't know, whom he had watched die, who had some upjumped family of assholes crying for her somewhere, and the possibility of life. Sometimes he wonders why he fucking bothered. Sometimes he wonders why he didn't just let her outlast him. Then he wakes up, and realizes he's Haymitch Abernathy, and he'll be damned if he let anyone count him out because he'd been lined up for a life of blackness in the ground before he had to go slaughter children.

Then he reaches the Victors Village, which he fucking _hates_, and he knows something's wrong. It's too still, and he can see each dust mote swirling in the air of his porch with a too-strident clarity.

He should be hearing life. His mother, cooking, or the pages of her precious books turning. His brother, shouting, running. Perhaps _she_'d be there, waiting for him, making small talk with his family. And maybe it's sick to admit, even to the darkest part of himself, but he's half wondered about this. He should have expected it. He should have known it would happen quickly, should have made sure they were safe.

He feels his anguish rising from the pit of his stomach to his throat, where it lodges and chokes him, and he falls to his knees amongst the ash of his short-lived old life. And he roars, and he clutches his mother's cold hand, so hard his nails break her skin, and he's shouting, unintelligible hollers of rage and pleading and grief and hate. Begging her to wake up. But he staggers to his feet, somehow, head swimming, mind not working the way it should. Because how could his thoughts link together into sentences, into words, into letters when there was so much fucking _hurt_?

It was his brother that sparked the first tear though. He found himself in the doorway of the living room, and he keeled over beside the body – no, beside his brother – and he couldn't bring himself to close his eyes, like they did in stories, because those were _his_ eyes, his glassy, sightless eyes. He was a _child_. An innocent fucking _child._ The sound tears from his throat and suddenly his on the ground, as if he's the one in physical pain, and he can feel the tears strangling him, hot, salty rivulets of loss, blinding, stinging, aching, enveloping him like the agony. He doesn't need to check. He knows _she_'s gone as well.

And through his blurred vision, Haymitch can see the perfect petals, feel the acrid, manufactured stench invading his senses – of the pure white rose, sitting on the coffee table.

**_ii._**

The second time, he's not sure if it counts. Because it's only one or two little tears, in the dead of night, and nobody will know. Not even himself, in a few years.

District Thirteen is dark and rigid and terrible, and President Coin won't let him anywhere near the rubbing alcohol. His bed is uncomfortable. The food is bad. And he's left behind two of the most important people in his life. The boy, because he should have been the face of this fucking revolution. He was the one who should never have been thrown into that world; kind hearted in a world built on dust and dreams and death. The kid painted pictures and frosted cakes, for fuck's sake, and the way he spoke moved nearly the hardest of hearts. Willing to do anything to protect the amazing, of course, young woman who could (and often was) a charmless bitch. (Wasn't his fault. It was always the plan to get the girl out, damn it.) And Effie, because…

He didn't really know why.

He'd put her on the list of people to protect, people to pardon, when he was talking to Plutarch. But when it came down to it, when the world caught on fire, he'd raced to sort the rest out, and he'd left her. He didn't know why he felt so bad about it. There was something about her that snuck under his skin, something he misses like an ache, but hell, he didn't even _like_ her half the time. And yet the thought of her, rotting in some Capitol cell, didn't make any sense, and it struck him stark, like a blow to the stomach, a cave-in to the chest, a strike across the face. A blade like the knife under his pillow.

And he misses the alcohol. Without it, it's like somebody's scratched off his skin and thrust him into the blinding vinegar world unprotected. It's Katniss too. She's like the annoying niece who gets into your head like a hook, and she's already lost so much, he can't let her loose any more, let any of them. Peeta. And he dreams of the games, still; his, and others. Pink beaks protruding from bloody throats. Little girls with spears stuck in them. Blistering mists. Manipulation and lies and dead families. He dreams of white roses and axes whirling, and a scared, helpless Effie Trinket, a thousand miles away.

The few beads of salty prayer that escape him are a secret, kept between his half-conscious, and the pillow.

**_iii. _**

The third time, Haymitch cries for almost the opposite reason.

_He's got her back. _

And the hospital in the shattered Capitol, the few days where two presidents were not dead is eye-searingly fluorescent, all white lights and flashing screens and the stench of death thick in the air, but here they have food, and they have whiskey, so he's not complaining. He's holding a bottle, leaning against the infirmary corridor, swigging generously, matted hair in his eyes, dread and anticipation mingling in his stomach, an uncomfortable concoction of uncertainty for the future. He's not so willing to assume this is all over yet.

And after all. He's been a mess the last five minutes since Plutarch's message. His eyes subconsciously flit back and forth to the clock on the wall, every tick a resounding echo in his skull. Time dragged on, seconds bleeding into infinities, no span to time. Waiting was the true killer, patience was his suicide. Every time the doors the other end of the hallway burst open, his heart dropped and his head jerked up, and then he sighed disappointment.

It took six minutes longer than Plutarch said it would, getting her here. And the rest of her cell block, that they had just cracked open. But mostly her. He didn't care about the rest. The double doors swing open, and yet another of those wheel-hospital-bed things is pushed through, and his stomach backflips, and he feels his sweaty grip loosen on the glass of the whiskey bottle, as it becomes irrelevant to him, like the rest. The echo of his footsteps falling heavy on the polished floor crashes with the sound of squeaking wheels, and doctors talk, and statacco breathing. Whose, he couldn't say. He rushes to the bed and grips the side of it so hard his knuckles turn white, and he doesn't care anymore. They get her into a room with only two other patients lying in it, other Capitol prisoners who need to be checked over and medicated.

He's trembling. Or maybe she is. She looks a fucking wreck, and if this was any other situation, he was sure he wouldn't be able to get over the fact she's blonde. She seems confused, and terrified, and it's heartbreaking. With whatever strength she has she's looking around and murmuring and whimpering under her breath. They get her into one of the hospital beds, and she looks up at him for the first time, and something clicks in her vacant gaze, and he lunges to hug her the minute she does him, and he hears her whisper his name, and Haymitch is too overwhelmed to cry. The emotion is spilling from his skin instead. He's the only one she recognizes, the first one. Words attempt to string together, but they tangle un-verbalized in his throat and dry in his mouth. It's alright. He doesn't need them anyway.

It's the next morning the tears come, tears of sheer relief. There's one thing he's yet to completely fuck up. He sits beside her bed while she sleeps. She's not too bad, they say. Not compared to the state of some of the others. At some point during the night he takes her hand, and around dawn he thinks, _don't you dare fucking die on me, princess. _

And he doesn't realize he's said it out loud until she manages to come out with, broken and barely audible, with all she has left, "Manners, Haymitch,"

He can't help it then. The tears come, and he doesn't care.

**_iv. _**

He really doesn't expect it, the next time, because he really doesn't expect what triggers it.

Katniss visits often, too often for his liking, but somebody's got to keep an eye on him, make sure he's not bribing Ripper into disobeying the Mockingjay's strict, no-liquor-for-Haymitch orders. Sometimes she brings Peeta with her; they're engaged now, and his episodes are growing less frequent. The younger ones are all starting to sew the frayed scraps of their lives back into something that resembled them; he just felt like he'd lost his needle and thread a long time ago. Even so, there are days when he's distracted enough, with the geese, and the thought of Effie's next visit, and the calm, to be alright. The victors are bound by something deeper than blood; they see each other too much. And yet even he can tell that this time, there's something more urgent in this, something deeper.

She sits at his living room table, with two Hunger Games and a war to her back, a lifetime of healing and hope before her, a lost cause across the mahogany surface, and Haymitch is expecting anything but what tumbles from her lips. "I want you to give me away."

**_v._**

By the fifth time, he's almost happy. Enough to not care anymore. The candlelight flickers, and it makes the shadows dance; for once they do not look like the shadows of the past, but the shade of the future.

He's still shocked sometimes, when he sees her now. She's explained about how fashions change and this look is _in_ now, and it's nothing to fuss about, but he knows better, and he thinks they all do. Haymitch loves her like this, when it's just the two of them, and she's bereft of even the minimal make-up she sticks to now, blonde curls loose. He fills his lungs with the perfect evening, and wonders when it even came to this. "Look, Trinket," He knew he probably should have planned out a big speech, he knew most men did. He knew she'd have liked that. But there were a lot of things she'd have liked that just weren't him. It went both ways. And if she loved him even a fraction of how much he loved her regardless, he was happy. "When I first met you, I really hated you. Really, really hated you. More than anyone I'd ever met. Possibly more than President Snow. And you know why? Because I knew you were smart. You were an expert in architectural design, for crying out loud. I could tell you had a brain in there, under all the sparkles and glitter and fucking _fabulous_ fluff. And yet you still insisted on serving a slave system. Grinning and being your usual control freak self as you sent off kid upon kid to go die. Well, I knew you could think and you still did all that, so yeah, I hated you more than anything. But then I sort of realized something; over little moments and Katniss and Peeta, I realized you were just a –"

If he didn't know her better, he'd have said Effie looked almost offended, lips pursed, blue eyes narrowed. They drifted now and then, in ways they never did before. But they all had their scars. "Haymitch, I don't know what you think ought to be accomplished by –"

"Shh, damn it, woman!" He smiled, just to show her he was still on her side, even if it was hard with her interrupting. These things were meant to go smoothly. "I realized you were human. And then I could sort of tolerate you a bit better. Then you went and got yourself _imprisoned_ by the Capitol and I," He paused before the _imprisoned_. If there was ever a bad time to trigger Effie Trinket, it was now. "Felt this immeasurable horror, because for all your ignorance and your shit and your _so_ goddamn irritating –"

Effie made a little incredulous sound, as if to return the irritation remark."I hope you wouldn't mind my asking what on earth are you trying to achieve by rapidly insulting me, Haymitch Abernathy, because if it's to alienate me further from you then you have done incredibly well." _And she was the one forever nagging at him that interrupting people was the height of bad manners._

This woman. It was a wonder he didn't cry from exasperation. "For the love of god, I'm trying to say that _for all of that_ I still love you more than anything, fuck. You're going to be like this at the altar, aren't you?" She was going to be the death of him. (He was certain he didn't mind. There were much worse ways to go. He'd seen them. He'd seen her, and she'd seen him. Finally.)

"Haymitch…" He saw the shift in her eyes as realization registered on her face. He stared, for once not so sourly, into her eyes. "You were… You were asking me to marry you?"

"Yes, damn it!"

"Well!" Effie's voice was slightly less affected by the Capitol accent than it had been a few years ago. Living in Twelve had softened it a touch, but it was still there, buried. It was nice, in a way. Comforting. They'd both changed, so much, but they were still exactly the same. "That was simply _the_ most unromantic thing I have ever heard in my entire life, I have for years been trying to civilize you and I'm not sure it's even a manageable task! Gosh, Haymitch… Maybe that's for the better. Maybe that's why I do love – Oh, that I like, I ought to put that in the vows, do you do vows in Twelve? We do vows in the Capitol. We really ought to do vows."

"Effie..." He was almost certain she could plainly see the same shift in his eyes as he realized. Oh god. This was it then. _No, no, _he told himself, harshly as possible – _don't start thinking through again, all sappy and stupid, you did that yesterday, you'll have time for that later. _"You were… You were saying yes?"

"Yes, damn it!"

Maybe they were more alike than he thought.

As he held her, that evening, he could help thinking of the hospital. He could help crying. Because the pieces were finally fitting together. Not quite right. Jagged-edged, shattered wrong. But fitting together, all the same. And he remembered the first time he'd let himself cry, and somehow, Haymitch _knew_, he'd never have a reason to again.

**A/N ~ **Because Queen Liz told me to write more fanfiction, that's why. R&R, my babies.


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